Interesting squad ready to battle it out in Tournament of Champions – Tennis News
Field for the Qatar Airways Tournament of Champions is announced and it includes four athletes from the Top-16 category of the world rankings. The top seed for the tournament will be the former world number one, Caroline Wozniacki, and the second highest seeded player is the 30-year-old Russian superstar, Nadia Petrova, who is also the former world number three.
The complete list of players along with their rankings and country represented is given below:
Ranking
Name
Country
11
Caroline Wozniacki
Denmark
13
Nadia Petrova
Russia
16
Roberta Vinci
Italy
25
Su-Wei Hsieh
Taiwan
29
Jie Zheng
China
32
Daniela Hantuchova
Slovakia
15
Maria Kirilenko
Russia
44
Tsvetana Pironkova
Bulgaria
The last two athletes written in bold in the above table were awarded the wildcard to participate in the event. Pironkova will be the crowd favourite for the contest but is least expected to punch an upset considering her overall ranking and the current run of form. She is playing at her home soil which can be a major plus for her; everyone in the arena will be chanting for her name throughout the contest but it will take something extraordinary to beat the likes of the Top-3 seeds which look highly unlikely.
Women Tennis Association Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Stacey Allaster said, “I would like to congratulate this prestigious group of players on their success in 2012 as they eagerly await the start of the Qatar Airways Tournament of Champions Sofia. This is a very strong field, with each player having a tremendous amount of success. Amongst the group, there are nine WTA singles titles earned this year and tennis fans in Sofia are in for a week of incredible women's tennis.”
Bulgaria Tennis Federation’s president and the event's Tournament Director, Stefan Tzvetkov stated, “We are delighted to have such a strong player field for the first staging of the Qatar Airways Tournament of Champions Sofia. We look forward to welcoming these stars of women's tennis to Bulgaria, where everyone is looking forward to an exciting event.”
The tournament will be played from October 30th to November 4. It will be contested at the hard courts of Sofia. It is the final tournament of the WTA calendar year and also the second most awaited one after the WTA Championships that is going on in Istanbul at the moment; featuring the Top-8 athletes from the world.
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